-The Indian Express   Pitching for changes in laws to deal with corruption, the Prime Minister's Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu has said bribe-givers should not be penalised in case he has to pay money for getting the work done. In his revised paper to deal with corruption, Basu argued bribe giver could be penalised only if he or she benefits from government contracts. But in that case too, the penalty for bribe...

The first judgment in a 2002 riots case and the SIT report on the Ishrat Jahan killing go against the Gujarat government. THE verdict in a crucial and long-running case involving a massacre and the investigation report in another case, of alleged encounter killings, both delivered in November, give hope to victims of the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat that they will get justice, even if delayed. In the first case, the special...

What is our national aim? To my mind, our national aim must be to make India a highly prosperous country for its citizens, and for that it is necessary to have a high degree of industrialization.  Even setting up and running a single primary school requires a lot of money, e.g. for buying land, erecting the school building and providing for the recurrent expenditure for salaries of teachers, staff, etc. We...

-The Economic Times   The Supreme Court has asked courts to send accused persons to jail only after conviction. In a landmark judgement on bail, which will have a major impact on the several thousands of undertrials languishing in various jails, the Supreme Court on Monday said denial of bail to an accused for an indefinite period impinged on the Fundamental Right to life and personal liberty.  "The courts owe more than verbal...

We have five million children in the labour market, say official figures. Their actual numbers may be four times as many. As a nation, we have failed each one of them…   Millions of our children still labour today, in factories, farms, kilns, mines, homes and city waste dumps, when they should be in school or in a playground. We profoundly fail these children, collectively depriving them of education, play, rest, healthy...